We started this blog in order to keep our community updated with our progress.
Here’s a little bit about the team:
We are a team of UC Berkeley students who are working to design a closed-loop 3D printing PLA filament recycling system for our campus. This project began in 2016 when Nikki Panditi and Scott Silva of the Zero Waste Research Center (ZWRC) applied for The Green Initiative Fund (TGIF) funding for an extruder device to create 3D Printer Filament from failed 3D prints. At that point, the team was using a smoothie blender to granulate the failed prints.
Since then, Nikki has graduated from UC Berkeley and passed the project onto Lauren Irie. After working on the project for a year by herself, Lauren recruited a team through the Student Environmental Resource Center (SERC) and Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW). That team includes Quinn Wong, Emmy Yu, Paulina Salgado, and Brooke Chang.
Currently, Quinn focuses on granulation, Emmy and Paulina focus on extrusion, and Brooke focuses on 3D printing and mechanical testing. Meanwhile, Lauren helps out wherever it is needed and handles the project relations with outside members.
Since 2016, the team has made great strides towards its goals and has been fortunate enough to get some more advanced technology.
Look for the rest of our blogs to catch up on each portion of our project and check back for more updates throughout the year.
This blog post was written by Brooke Chang.
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